one takes them in hand. They become dazzling! It's quite in the

grand seventeenth-century style. Well, NOW she can receive."

The two old ladies had again sat down and with lowered tones began

talking about the marriage, which was causing astonishment to a good

many people. Estelle had just passed by them. She was in a pink

silk gown and was as pale, flat, silent and virginal as ever. She

had accepted Daguenet very quietly and now evinced neither joy nor

sadness, for she was still as cold and white as on those winter